This male cock-of-the-rock was kind enough to grace us with a good view of his feathery finery.

One of the most striking birds to be seen in the neotropical rainforests of Peru is the Andean cock-of-the-rock, Rupicola peruvianus. Male birds are the ones that everyone hopes to see, due to their brilliant orange plumage contrasting with black and gray wings. Females are much duller in coloration, a still beautiful but far less noticeable chestnut-brown with only hints of the vibrant orange that males possess. I didn’t see any females on my January 2020 trip to Peru, so this post will only feature males.

Range map of the Andean cock-of-the-rock. Credited to Robert S. Ridgely and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology/Neotropical Birds.

Habitat of the Andean cock-of-the-rock in northern Peru, featuring the Gocta Waterfall.

Gocta Waterfall is hardly known to the world outside of northern Peru. I’ll write about the falls, the geology and scenery, and the high biological diversity of the area in a separate post, since this one focuses mainly upon the cock-of-the-rock birds.

Gocta Falls are one of the highest in the world, with a series of cascades and giant free-falling sections dropping a total of nearly 3000 feet (900 meters). Ranking waterfalls in terms of height can be somewhat contentious. Definitions of where a waterfall begins and ends vary, and there is disagreement over whether the falls should include short cascade sections in the total, or only the vertical drop portions should be counted. But by any measure, Gocta Falls does rank as one of the top 10 waterfalls on earth in terms of height, and some place it third.

A carved wooden sign depicts several of the more prominent bird species that can be seen along the 12.5 km-long (8.5 mile, round-trip) trail that wends through the cloud forest en route to Gocta Falls. We had not yet seen any of these birds at the time I took this photograph in the early morning. The Spanish name for cock-of-the-rock is “Gallita de las Rocas” which means essentially the same thing as it does in English.

My first photographic view of a wild cock-of-the-rock, taken mid morning on Saturday, January 24, 2020 around 2.5 hours after we started hiking.

Despite the poor coloration in the photo above due to strong backlighting against the sky, I opted to include my first-ever image because it was exciting to see this brilliant bird, and I was not assured in any way that I would see them again. I only managed to grab a few motor-driven photos in a couple of seconds before it flew off. I was hopeful that I might be able to obtain more pictures later on, but with active, quick-moving, and secretive subjects such as forest birds there is never a guarantee of this. One subpar photo is still better than none at all, so you take the opportunities as they arrive in time.

A better view of what may, or may not, be a different individual of the magnificent Rupicola peruvianus.

Fortunately for at least three people in our six-person group, we were afforded a much better view of a cock-of-the-rock a few minutes later. We continued hiking after our much-too-brief glimpse of the original bird, keeping our eyes peeled for further flashes of orange in the green landscape. When another male appeared in the tree canopy and perched upon a branch about 20 meters away, we were thrilled and silently repositioned ourselves as best we could to try to capture photos without scaring it off. (The other three group members had hiked ahead of us and never saw the birds at all, to my knowledge.)

I used my 300 mm zoom lens to bring the bird as close to me as possible, optically speaking, and then cropped in on the resulting images afterwards to provide as much detail as I could.

There are two species in the bird genus Rupicola. Obviously there is this one shown here, the Andean cock-of-the-rock, Rupicola peruvianus; the other is the Guianan cock-of-the-rock, Rupicola rupicola, which is similarly vivid orange but with much less black on the wings. Guianan birds also have longer decorative feathers on the wings and back that are not present on the smoother plumage of the Andean. Guianan cocks-of-the-rock are found in the Guianan Shield mountains of southern Venezuela, eastern Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and northeastern Brazil. The two species’ ranges do not overlap and they are not known to interbreed. Aside from that geographic separation, however, they are clearly affiliated and have similar habitats and lifestyles.

Photo showing a frontal view of the feathered crest that virtually hides the bird’s beak.

Cocks-of-the-rock are members of the neotropical bird family Cotingidae. Cotingid birds are among the most splashily colored of all avian species, with mind-blowing iridescent combinations straight out of a fantasy movie. I did just a quick image search on the word “cotinga” and the results returned were amazing, so feel free to try for yourself.

I moved slightly to the left to get a bit better angle of the bird, which didn’t seem frightened of the several people observing it so long as we were quiet and moved slowly. The steep slope we were hiking on aided photography in this case since the bird was perched on a downslope tree branch almost at eye level, which prevented the harsh backlighting so common when you are standing far below and looking up towards the sky.

Most cotingid birds are primarily frugivorous (fruit-eating) although many species do eat some insects or even small vertebrates like frogs or lizards.

Cocks-of-the-rock are well known for their mating behavior, which involves a process called “lekking” and occurs on “leks”. A lek is a gathering place for males, who congregate in groups and engage in communal and competitive breeding displays that attract females, who will hopefully choose them as a partner. Lek behavior is common in birds but is also found in a diverse array of other species, including fish, insects, and frogs. Leks can be chosen based upon proximity to good food supplies, nesting sites, or safety from predators, among other reasons.

Detail of the bird’s head, including the feathery crest and the pointed bill that lies barely visible underneath it.

When lekking, males gather in groups in the forest that may contain anywhere from 6 to 40 individuals, with an average number being around 12 to 15 birds. There they indulge in noisy and conspicuous displays designed to impress the comparatively drab females and outshine other males. They make loud and distinctive calls that include groans, rattles, grunts, and harsh caws, all done while spreading their wings and shaking their feathers and raising their crests. It’s worth seeking out a short video or two of this behavior online so that you can see what all the commotion is about. Clearly, females like all this effort, because the males wouldn’t do it unless they did.

The male cock-of-the-rock turns his head to preen his feathers. This position reveals that the outermost edges of the fiery orange feathers are the most colorful, with the inner layers being a softer shade.

Evolutionarily speaking, it is proposed that lekking behavior can lead to some rather extreme outcomes in behavior and appearance for males of whatever species are doing it, regardless of whether they are birds or fish or frogs. Since ostentation and flamboyance tends to attract more attention from the females, who selectively breed with males that show it over males that don’t, it does not take very many generations for the spectrum of color, sound, and activity to shift in ever more extreme directions. And since it takes only a handful of males to breed and maintain the population relative to the females, it is the most excessive males that tend to pass on their genes.

At some point, the bird flew a short distance away to another tree, which was fortunately just as good in terms of visibility with a little bit of moving around on my part. This view is much better at showing the black and gray wing feathers, which provide a striking contrast to the orange body and head.

Of course there is also an ecological cost to extreme showiness in breeding displays. Males that develop noisy rituals and brilliant colors are much more visible to predators than more retiring and camouflaged species are, and are often targeted as such. Males that spend too much time attempting to impress females and not doing other things in life (like obtaining food or watching for predators) might become weakened by all their efforts and become ill or otherwise disadvantaged, and not selected by the females after all. Limits are eventually  imposed by nature although there are still some fairly “out there” results in any case. Female birds do not have any advantage to being colorful and obvious while trying to raise their young, so many of them stay comparatively dull and quiet. This difference in appearance between the sexes is called sexual dimorphism. But make no mistake – the females are the ones driving at least half of the equation behind the scenes by choosing gaudy males in the first place!

The male changes positions while keeping an eye on us.

We saw this male for somewhere around 13-15 minutes. In that time I took almost 600 pictures of him in several positions using my burst mode, rapid-fire camera exposure feature, which is useful for skittish and restless subjects. Of course many of those 600 photos are worthless – the camera focused on a twig and not the bird, the bird moved and was blurry, the exposure was too dark or too bright, and so forth. I deleted 80% of them later on. The pictures I am posting here are the culmination of about 6 or 7 hours worth of editing efforts, plus more time researching and writing. Not to mention the opportunity costs of getting to Peru in the first place and hiking all those miles! 😉

Wenbo laid on the ground at some points to help steady his long camera lens against motion. His photos of the bird turned out great too.

Dan said that seeing a cock-of-the-rock in habitat was one of his top hoped-for Peruvian trip goals. And luckily his wish was granted. As was mine….

Cocks-of-the-rock of both species are important in their habitat, since their diversely frugivorous diets help disperse seeds throughout the cloud forests where they live. Studies have shown that the birds will eat the fruits of as many as 65 different tree and shrub species, although they preferentially feed upon members of the plant families Lauraceae, Annonaceae, and Rubiaceae. Around 75% of the fruits fed upon were either red or black in color. Plant diversity tends to be higher near lekking sites for these birds, simply because they first go feed in the forest and then congregate afterwards at the lekking spots, where they defecate the seeds of fruits they had consumed earlier. The seeds then germinate where they are dropped. As such, their behavior influences the composition of the forest in terms of species diversity and distribution.

The upper portion of Gocta Falls plummets over a cliff beyond a forested ridge. The even taller lower portion is not visible here.

The eastern Andes are covered in tropical cloud forest, which is always wet and humid but not really hot since altitude moderates the oppressive temperatures common in tropical lowlands. Biodiversity in these mid-elevation montane forests is enormous, and endemism is high, with many species being found in only a few valleys or mountain ranges. Andean cocks-of-the-rock are found in these cloud forests at elevations between 1500 feet and 8000 feet (450 meters and 2400 meters) but not in the truly alpine Andes Mountain zones farther west or the lower, flatter regions along the upper Amazonian tributary rivers to the east.

Upper Gocta Falls in the morning. By late afternoon, after a heavy rainstorm, the falls’ volume was increased tenfold, a topic I will feature in a separate post later.

True to their name, cocks-of-the-rock nest on cliff faces and along rocky outcrops and in rugged, broken terrain. Nests are built by females and are composed of a mix of saliva, mud, and plant fibers, plastered to the cliffs, especially under overhangs or near cave entrances where they are somewhat protected from the frequent rains. The cup shaped nests usually contain two eggs, which are incubated for 25 to 28 days before they hatch. Chicks are helpless and require extensive care, like many passerine bird chicks. They take another 45 to 48 days to fledge and leave the nest. Males play no role in chick-rearing, instead heading back to their leks to focus on additional breeding displays in hopes of convincing more females to select them.

Wenbo with a cock-of-the-rock sign along the Gocta Trail. This particular ravine is where we first saw the birds, which is evidently a known site for seeing them since both signs we saw were placed along this stretch of the long hike.

Both species of cocks-of-the-rock are not considered to be endangered at this point, although like most species in Latin America they are suffering significant habitat loss due to climate change and human activities such as deforestation and illegal trapping for the wild bird trade. The population trend of these gorgeous birds is downwards, if not yet critical, and we cannot take their future security for granted. The Andean cock-of-the-rock is considered to be the national bird of Peru, a justifiable symbolic decision based upon their beauty and ecological importance to the forests they live in.

My final photo of a third bird, taken late in the afternoon in the same densely forested ravine where we saw the first two.

On the hike back to the hotel, we heard a bunch of noise in the forest up the hill, indicating that a flock of male cocks-of-the-rock were either socializing or competing at a lek, as the case may be. More easily heard than seen in the dense vegetation on the steep slopes, I was unable to take a photo of them. About a half hour later we did catch a glimpse of another male burning like a flame in the greenery. Alas, he was more shy than the second bird and remained semi-hidden at a distance. I didn’t try to take too many pictures of this more difficult subject, since I was perfectly satisfied with the ones I’d taken hours earlier, but it’s part of the day’s story. So enjoy this parting photo of a blurry bird mostly hidden in a tree. 😉

As long as these jewels of the forest continue to exist, I will take comfort in knowing they are still of this earth.